“Thermal Shutdown” – Heat Wave Knocks Beta Starlink Users Offline

While a massive heat wave and megadrought plague tens of millions of Americans, beta users of SpaceX’s broadband service called Starlink are reporting their dishes are overheating, which knocks them offline. 

Earlier this week, a Redditor posted an error message that reads “Offline Thermal Shutdown.” The dish “overheated” and “Starlink will reconnect after cooling down,” the error message continued. 

According to Ars Technica, the Redditor, Martin, reached out to Starlink support team, which told him, “Dishy will go into thermal shutdown at 122F and restart when it reaches 104F.” He tried to cool down the dish with water in the hot Arizona heat, though the “fix was temporary.”

“When I stopped the sprinkler, [the dish] heated back up and would cycle back on for a few minutes and go back down for thermal shutdown. The overheating started that day about 11:30 am and came back for good about 7 pm… I’m currently headed to a hardware store to get materials to build a solar shade/sail around the dish to see if it doesn’t impact connection and speed,” he said. 

One of the drawbacks of Starlink appears to be thermal issues where the user cannot access satellite internet until the dish cools down. Other users have reported the same problem. 

About two months ago, another Redditor said their dish shut down for 30 minutes after being exposed to “low 80s and sun.” 

To all beta testers using Starlink this summer, better come up with a dish heat management system or else face no connectivity. Not surprising, considering this is a company owned by Elon Musk.